Industrial Design

Have you protected your product’s appearance yet?

Guarantee the exclusive use of the aesthetic characteristics of a product. This is the aim of an industrial design, something which contributes to the success of a business, regardless of its sector.

Advantages

What are the advantages of industrial designs?

Exclusive Rights

Industrial designs provide ample protection to their holder to avoid non-authorized third parties from using, copying, making, importing/exporting, or selling products with a given set of protected aesthetic characteristics, including shapes, lines, contours, colors, textures, or ornamentation.

Sale or Licensing

The assignment or licensing of this industrial property asset to third parties is also permitted, allowing you to increase the value of your company’s assets. If you wish to do so, our team can help you define and negotiate the best solution for you.

Extended Protection

Industrial designs have a continuous period of protection that differs from country to country, but it can last up to 25 years.

What products can be protected by industrial designs?

The criteria and their interpretation vary according to jurisdiction. However, industrial designs are protected when:

Are a Novelty

When no identical design has been previously disclosed to the public.

Have an individual character

The overall impression caused is different from those designs previously made public.

Packaging, graphic symbols (such as computer icons), footwear, clothing or patterns are some examples of things that can be protected by industrial designs.

If you have a product with the characteristics listed above, it is likely that you can protect it with an industrial design. There are, however, other aspects that should be taken into consideration: Do you intend to market your product? Do you foresee making a profit from that marketing?

If the answers are affirmative, then you have an innovation to protect through this mean. However, for a clear answer to all your questions, feel free to get in touch with our specialists.

How do we monitor the industrial design registration and maintenance process?

Once we obtain all the required information to file and effectuate the application, our industrial design department continually monitors the publication, registration, and management process for this asset:

We monitor the decision until its granting or take care of administrative work resulting from the PTOs’ analysis. In the course of this analysis, the design holders can initiate its dissemination and marketing.

An industrial design is a right that protects the aesthetic characteristics (shapes, lines, colors, etc.) of products which are:

New, i.e., that have not been previously disclosed;

Individual character, i.e., that produce a different overall impression from other existing products.

These criteria – and their interpretation – differ from country to country.

Therefore, industrial designs differ from patents and utility models, which protect the technical characteristics of a product. An industrial design focuses on the appearance of a product, independently of its technical aspects.

An example would be industrial designs often used in the footwear, automotive, and furniture industries.They prove to be very important to distinguish between many devices that are similar in function but different in they way they look.

If you have created a new product with individual character, it is important to protect it by registering it as an industrial design and obtaining the exclusive rights to produce or sell it. You will also be able to take legal action against third parties who may try to copy or counterfeit your product for commercial purposes.

It is also worth mentioning that the industrial design protection period can last as long as 25 years, depending on the country. You are guaranteed the maximum degree of security in the exploitation of your product with innovative aesthetical characteristics.

The rights on exploitation of an industrial design also include the power to assign or license it to third parties. This allows you to enhance your company’s value, especially if you want to create a design portfolio.

Our professionals are highly specialized in the industrial design sector and take on the various stages of this process:

1 - Definition of the best registration strategy, bearing in mind the type of products to be protected or the number of jurisdictions.

2 - Preparation of technical designs or photographs in order to meet the necessary formal requirements.

3 – Filling the application for registration.

4 – Monitoring of the granting process, responding to notifications from the PTOs.

5 - Monitoring of the publication and granting process.

6 - Sending alerts to inform you of the need to pay the design registration maintenace fees to be paid in five instalments or annually. This differs by country, as in some jurisdictions they may not exist, may be paid every five years or annually.

7 - Definition of strategies that help increase the industrial design’s legal protection on the market.

You must register the industrial design in all the countries to which you intend to export and distribute your innovations. You have six months from the date of the first national filing to carry out any registration in another country.

No, this is why it is necessary to file the application in every country where you want to protect the aesthetic characteristics of your product, complying with the formalities of each jurisdiction.

To make this process more convenient, there is The Hague route, in which we file one single application that allows the extension of the industrial design protection to more than 65 territories.

However, there are other options with a more regional focus. This is true in the case of the African Intellectual Property Organization (AIPO), in which it is possible to register an industrial design in all countries belonging to the Bangui Agreement; of the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), which permits a single filing for all countries belonging to the Lusaka Agreement; of the Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BOIP), where you register an industrial design in the three countries belonging to Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg); and of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), in which it is possible to register an industrial design in the European Union member states.

In the face of a harmful and illegal act, it may be necessary to resort to law enforcement agencies, customs, and courts. Penalties differ from country to country and they can be civil (compensation payments), criminal, or administrative in nature.